EM Teaser & Site Updates - Official Trailer Up & Latest PREVIEWS & Blog Fan Kit - by thiefessa
jtr7 on 23/5/2013 at 10:25
So, when are we gonna see some real steampunkishness, or heck, industrial stuff to match or surpass the amount found in a single mission from TDP?
Briareos H on 23/5/2013 at 11:38
Speaking of which, pardon me if this has already been discussed, I would argue Thief was a very special kind of steampunk, more akin to an "electricitypunk" than the Arcanum style that became predominantly iconic of steampunk today, which made it very interesting. I should add it to my list of what made Thief new.
Thief didn't have any mad moustached scientist in top hat wearing round opaque glasses and a brown duster coat, blunderbuss in hand, building a large contraption made of copper gears and bolts with colorful magic flowing through. That would look absolutely preposterous in the Thief universe.
First off, most metal wasn't copper, rather with tones reminiscent of rusted iron, patinated tin or, at best, bronze. Technology was made of early Tesla-like generators and crude antennas. Gears weren't featured until the Mechanists arrived in the second game and even then, there wasn't a lot of exposed machinery. Automata were shells for something mysterious and unhuman-like, that had been built by cold scientists with just a faint touch of magic. They were emotionally featureless beyond their refined but disturbing masks, absolutely nothing like designs (
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2swe9AfgD1qa3nkyo1_500.jpg) like these.
And in fact, what I originally thought to be victorian was pretty misguided. There isn't anything very victorian about Thief, rather an almost completely medieval universe that somehow has electricity and elemental magic.
I suppose a new, more victorian faction could represent the main antagonist, bringing elements that don't belong to the City but let's be careful about assuming they were part of the original universe, eh Eidos?
EDIT: And of course, the real killer here is:
Quote:
The introduction to The City, another core returning element, has a sense of BioShock-like parade. Garrett rides a bumpy wooden cart through a portcullis checkpoint
I know better than to, as was mentioned, beat a dead horse but really, almost everything about the new game sounds like nobody on the team had an idea of how Thief worked. Is there anything more basic than "outside of cutscenes, large arena-levels where the player has total control as soon as loading is finished"? If there's something that can in no way belong to Thief, it's indeed on-rails exposition where control is taken from the player. What a stupid idea. Or was it a cutscene?
jtr7 on 23/5/2013 at 12:00
Exactly, yes. It is its own steampunk, not what people unfamiliar with Thief always tend to think of.
The cart ride has me thinking that'll be like Skyrim's opening, but over that bridge into the city section through the main gate there.
Briareos H on 23/5/2013 at 12:13
Right. I don't want to make a mountain out of a molehill, I'm reading too much into it. Perhaps it is a one-time only in-engine cutscene as you say, in that case not much harm done. I hope there's nothing similar to Bioshock in there.
jtr7 on 23/5/2013 at 12:19
From the mo-cap stuff that's been shown, it really looks like it will be similar to how Bioshock Infinite keeps locking into cutscenes. I don't want it to be like Dishonored, either, where the camera automatically might turn toward a conversation without being a cutscene.
Starker on 23/5/2013 at 13:56
Quote Posted by Briareos H
And in fact, what I originally thought to be victorian was pretty misguided. There isn't anything very victorian about Thief, rather an almost completely medieval universe that somehow has electricity and elemental magic.
Thief 2 has definitely strong Victorian influences. It's probably most readily apparent in the decor, but also in architecture and the overall theme of industrialisation.
From what I can remember, the two main influences in the series are Romanesque and Victorian. There's also some Classicism and Baroque examples (the bank and the opera house, respectively, come to mind).
Hope I didn't mix anything up, it's been quite a while since I last played the original missions.
Esme on 1/6/2013 at 13:49
Quote:
Thief now includes third-person climbing, scrambling and ledge-inching, with a claw grapple (not entirely unlike Assassin’s Creed: Revelations’ hook) to make the acrobatics smoother and faster.
Including third-person moments has clearly been a laboured decision (
the team ask assembled journalists pointblank if the perspective shift breaks the immersion) but is apparently preferable to the first-person limitations on agility that came in, say, Dishonored.
Excuse me, I don't give a rats arse whether or not the devs, the management of EM or a bunch of journalists think the perspective shift breaks the immersion.
When I'm scrambling for safety on handholds I can barely see and sweating with fear at the drop below me while trying to get out of sight of the archer who is drawing a bead on me, then thats me in there, I'm immersed.
The instant I find myself staring at the scene in third person then that stops being me.
No, I'm back sitting in my boring little room steering a puppet that I've no investment in around a landscape I don't care about while drinking coffee and idly wondering what's on TV later.
I sure as hell don't care if the puppet gets shot or falls to it's doom.
If I'm immersed and I die in there then that's a physical and emotional shock, I can't just automatically hit reload if I've immersed in the game and got my arse handed to me, it's a trauma and it needs dealing with if only to exclaim "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU....." first.
So show me some gameplay footage so I can judge for myself whether or not immersion is broken by suddenly finding I'm staring at the back of, what until then I considered to be, my own head, however I'm fairly sure immersion will be broken.
-- EDIT --
In fact it's just this sort of immersion that hooked me on Thief in the first place
Quote Posted by Esme
pretty much the first time I played thief, and it hit me that this was totally unlike any game I'd ever played, I didn't have to go ramboing round killing everything in sight in fact if I did I'd probably get killed off fairly quickly but instead I had to take my time, hide, plan, look at my surroundings and pay attention to the sounds and conversations around me, it drew me in and immersed me in the character in a way that I'd never experienced before or again in any other game, it was me in there, silently cursing the guard from the shadow, hoping with sweaty palms that the guard would give up his search for me, shrinking into the shadows when he got near, sagging with relief when he went away
that "whoa!" moment of realisation was what hooked me on thief and has kept me hooked to the present day
(
http://forums.eidosgames.com/showpost.php?p=1010790&postcount=21) Posted pretty much the same thing on Eidos own forum back in 2009
Quote:
the very first time I played Thief with the Bafford mission, I didn't know what to expect, I snuck past the guards at the front of Baffords listening to the banter about bear pits thinking "hmm thats pretty cool" and started to make my way to the well, it was very very dark, and my heart just stopped when this guard appeared right in front of me and walked past me without noticing me
the thing is I'd heard him approach but hadn't connected the sound to the fact that there was a guard coming because all the other games I'd played an AI 20 feet away made as much noise as one right next to you
this guard appearing with the right sound cues was jaw droppingly awesome and I had a serious WTF! moment and found myself propelled hard up against the wall behind me, then slowly a huge grin spread across my face, the second the guard had appeared I'd stopped sitting in my chair playing a video game, I was there & that was me no other game has ever done that for me
the guard spotted me on the way back and kicked the cr*p out of me but it was too late I was hooked
I haven't lost that grin for ten years and every time I played from then on, it was me stealing the sword or the eye agilely leaping from beam to rooftop, occasionally falling and hurting myself, stealing the trinkets and baubles of the unsuspecting citizenry ... and incidentally saving the world in the process, something the citizenry are blithely unaware of
and I happen to like it that way
I play Thief because when I do, I'm Garrett.
If I can't immerse I don't see the point in playing.
Dia on 1/6/2013 at 13:59
So very well said Esme, that I could just kiss your face! Well said indeed and seconded!
:thumb:
Kuuso on 4/6/2013 at 21:14
So I guess it's pretty safe to assume that they won't release a demo playthrough or anything before E3. It's also a good assumption that, if they don't show anything at E3, they have some serious problems.
